Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Crossing’, An ABC Drama About Refugees From The Future

Do you wish Lost was still on the air? Love shows that involve time travel, superhuman races, and Steve Zahn? Well, The Crossing might be just the show you’re looking for. But is it any good?

THE CROSSING: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A large number of bodies — men, women, children — floating in the water. We focus on a little girl, whose mother swims to her, kisses her to revive her, then swims with her towards the surface.

The Gist: Jude Ellis (Steve Zahn), a former Oakland cop, has taken the sheriff’s job in the sleepy fishing village of Port Canaan, Oregon, after his divorce. His deputy, Nestor Rosario (Rick Gomez), finds him in a yoga class and says a body washed up on a local beach. Soon, more bodies wash up, some still alive. They call in the Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security, thinking it’s a refugee situation.

There are survivors — 47 of them to be exact, including a little girl named Leah (Bailey Skodje). The group’s de facto leader, Caleb (Marcuis W. Harris), tells a remarkable story to the lead DHS investigator, Emma Ren (Sandrine Holt): The group are refugees from a country ripped open by war, but that country is America, almost 180 years in the future. Apparently, a humanoid race called The Apex used their super abilities to take over governments and set to eradicate the flawed humans as quickly as possible. This group was hastily provided an escape, via a portal that sent them back to “The Long Peace” during the 21st century.

Photo: ABC

The stories are consistent among the refugees, but when Ren briefs DHS Undersecretary Craig Lindauer (Jay Karnes) he dismisses it as a cult and tells Ren to keep things on the down-low, cutting Sheriff Ellis out of the loop. But when a woman who was picked up by a fishing boat grabs one of his shotguns and tells him, “Take me to the dead,” he has to get involved.

He takes her to where the bodies are being held, and distracts the feds to sneak her in. She checks the children, but doesn’t find what she’s looking for. When the feds run back in, the woman shows superior strength, senses and leaping ability as she escapes. Turns out she’s one of the Apex, and Ren now wonders if there are more of them. Ellis finds out eventually — when she comes back to his house with a gun in hand — that her name is Reece (Natalie Martinez) and she needs his help.

Our Take: Shows like The Crossing need to grab the viewer right away in order to get them to buy into the complicated and interconnected story enough so that the viewer commits to at least the entire first season. Despite a fair number of flaws, the pilot does just that, laying out the story in ways that are easy to discern, and setting some intrigue that will be interesting to follow.

One piece that’s intriguing is when one of the refugees, Thomas (Luke Camilleri), tells Ren that he knows that this isn’t the first group to make the crossing. He tells Lindauer that the first group came to change history, and not in a good way. Turns out Lindauer is one of them.

Another interesting story is how Reece and Ellis work together, and how DHS treats Leah, who right now no one knows is an Apex instead of a mere human. We liked Martinez on another confounding series, Under The Dome, and she does great here as a bad-ass Apex looking for her daughter.

Photo: ABC

Zahn is Zahn; he does fine in roles like this, and the tiny bits of humor that are baked into the pilot script are pulled off well because Zahn is such a fine comic actor. But we’re still questioning whether he can pull off the darker parts of the role of Ellis, having to live with his big-city past while trying to be a part-time parent to his young son.

There are other intriguing storylines that got a brief introduction in the pilot, but nothing worth mentioning until we see more.

Sex and Skin: All business here.

Parting Shot: After Ellis gets the jump on Reece in his house, and she asks for his help, he says, “OK, Reece, do you want to start from the beginning?” Of course, this means that Ellis will be clued into what exactly is going on.

Sleeper Star: We’ll pick Gomez, because his character, deputy Rosario, is from Port Canaan, and his history in the town may be something that comes up later on. He also says lines like “you know it’s harder to quit sugar than cocaine?”

Most Pilot-y Line: Reese spots Russian text on the fisherman who plucked her out of the water. When she speaks to him in Russian, he asks if she is Russian herself. “I’m nothing,” she replies.

Our Call: Stream It. The Crossing is interesting enough to get us to watch the second episode, which is saying a lot for a show that promises to be as intricate as this one is.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.